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Bingo in New Mexico
New Mexico has a bitter gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it looked like New Mexico might be one of the states to get on the Native casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a contract with New Mexico Amerindian tribes. When the working group came to an accord with two big local tribes a year later, Governor King refused to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until Nineteen Ninety Four.
When a new governor took office in 1995, it appeared that Amerindian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor passed the contract with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to hold the accord up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had out stepped his bounds in signing the compact, therefore denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico house, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the Government of New Mexico and its Amerindian tribes. Ten years had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The not for profit Bingo business has grown from 1999. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators acquired only $3,048 in revenues. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased steadily since then. 2005 witnessed the largest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a bit of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting around gaming as a key factor like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt wishful thinking.
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